delude

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English dēlūden, also dilluden,^[2] borrowed from Latin dēlūdō (“to play false, mock, deceive”),^[3][4][5][6] formed from dē- (“down, to one's detriment”) and lūdō (“to play”),^[4][7][8] itself from lūdus (“play, game”),^[6][9] the source of ludicrous.^[4][10] The prefix has a pejorative force here, according to the Oxford Dictionary of English.^[8] The OED compares the rare and obsolete French deluder, recorded in 1402.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

To deceive or mislead, and to frustrate: the MED's first quotations are from Lydgate, written before 1420, in a manuscript of about 1425: Me list not feyne, flatre, nor delude.^[2] Barnhart dates the word to probably about 1408, also from Lydgate,^[7] and Etymonline to about 1400.^[4] The OED's first record is later, from 1493.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The Latin verb meant to play false and to mock, and the MED shows Middle English using deluden for deceiving, for frustrating a person or a purpose, and for mocking.^[2] The OED records the sense of playing with someone under a pretence of seriousness, or of cheating their hopes, down to 1697, the sense "to deride" from 1526 to 1592, and "to elude, evade" from 1536 to 1680.^[3] Johnson (1755) still gave "to disappoint, to frustrate" as a second sense, after "to beguile, cheat, deceive".^[11] Only the sense of causing someone to accept what is false as true is current.^[3][5][12] Merriam-Webster's Book of Word Histories names amuse and beguile as words that went the opposite way, from "delude" to "entertain".^[13] The noun delusion followed from the Latin participial stem; used of a false fixed belief as a mental disorder it dates from the 1550s.^[4]

Timeline

• before 1420 – to deceive; to frustrate, in Lydgate.^[2]
• 1493 – to defraud or deprive by deceit (obsolete by 1594).^[3]
• before 1505 – to make someone accept what is false as true, in Henryson.^[3]
• before 1513 – to play with someone to their harm under pretence of seriousness (obsolete by 1697).^[3]
• 1526 – to deride, mock (obsolete by 1592).^[3]
• 1536 – to elude, evade (obsolete by 1680).^[3]
• 1615 – to beguile time (obsolete by 1660).^[3]
• before 1643 – with into or to, to bring someone by deceit into a belief or action.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. To make someone hold a false belief; to deceive or mislead the mind or judgment of: They deluded themselves into thinking the debt would vanish.^{[5][12][14][15]}
2. (obsolete, before 1513–1697) To mock someone or to frustrate their hopes or aims.^{[3][5][14][15]}
3. (obsolete, 1536–1680) To elude or evade.^{[3][5][14][15]}

Word family

• deluder
• deludingly
• delusive

Related words

• delusion
• allude
• elude
• illude
• illusion
• ludicrous
• prelude
• collude
• interlude

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
8. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
13. ^ Merriam-Webster's Book of Word Histories, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
14. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
15. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster